Brace compliance is a significant issue in the care and treatment of many disorders. Failure of a patient to comply with health care providers instructions to wear a brace for a prescribed period of time inhibits the care and recovery of the patient. In addition to slow recovery or treatment, non-compliance by the patient leads to increased health-care costs. In some instances, non-compliance can lead to additional complications requiring additional care and treatment.
Previous compliance monitors have outfitted braces with a sensor for detecting when the patient is wearing the brace. These monitors may use a temperature sensor that detects ambient temperature when the brace is not being worn and an increased temperature when the brace is being worn. The data is recorded as a function of time to determine how long the patient has worn the brace and stored on a data storage device located on the brace. When the patient visits the health care provider, the health care provider can connect the data storage device to a computer, download the stored data, and then analyze the collected data to determine how long the patient wore the brace. From this data, the health care provider can determine whether the patient has complied with the prescribed time period for wearing the brace.
While this system can determine whether a patient complied with a prescribed time period, the analysis of the data is typically performed after the treatment period is over or at some time later during the treatment period when the patient visits the health care provider. Unless the patient is diligent about tracking the amount of time they have worn the brace, the patient only gets compliance information when they visit the health care provider, the data is downloaded and analyzed to asses compliance. It would be advantageous to have a compliance monitor that provides the patient with instant, immediate, or readily available feedback on whether they are in compliance with the prescribed treatment. In this way, non-compliance is recognized by the patient much earlier in the treatment, providing the patient with the opportunity to correct compliance deficiencies.